Our Speakers
Professor Karl Gaffney - MBBChBAO(Hons) FRCPI FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital
Professor Karl Gaffney (MB, BCh, BAO Hons, FRCPI, FRCP) has been a Consultant Rheumatologist in Norwich since 1995 where he is service lead for axial
spondyloarthritis (including ankylosing spondylitis), adolescent rheumatology and osteoporosis. He is an Honorary Professor at Norwich Medical School, chair of the medical advisory board, National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society (www.nass.co.uk), founder member, treasurer and chair-elect of BRITSpA www.britspa.co.uk), chair of the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) axial SpA Biologics Guidelines Committee, member of the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Project Working Group, vice-chair of the BSR Heberden Committee, co-director and founder of the East of England and London Spondyloarthritis Academy (www.spaacademy.org), and an invited member of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society www.asas-group.org.
He has also represented the BSR and NASS at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) appraisal of biological therapies since 2007. He was Rheumatology Service Director from 2008 until 2016, Director of Postgraduate Education in Norwich between 1999 and 2005, and Director of Rheumatology Training, Eastern Deanery between 2001 and 2007.
With NASS he has co-developed primary and secondary care educational programmes for healthcare professionals. These initiatives have been awarded national and European awards for excellence in healthcare communication. He is leading the NASS National Gold Standard Delay to Diagnosis project, launched at the House of Commons in July 2020 www.nass.co.uk/get-involved/gold-standard. His current research interests include epidemiology, dose optimisation and extra-articular manifestations of axial SpA. He oversees a large clinical trials programme and collaborates with other national and international centres. He has published extensively and has been an invited speaker at national and international meetings.
Dr Deepak Jadon - MBBCh(Hons) MRCP(Rheum) PhD
Consultant Rheumatologist, Cambridge University Hospitals
Dr Deepak Jadon is a consultant rheumatologist, Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit, and lead for psoriatic arthritis (PsA) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
Having grown up in Cardiff, he graduated from the University of Wales College of Medicine in 2003, and then undertook clinical training in rheumatology and general internal medicine in Bath and Bristol between 2007-2015. He completed his PhD thesis on ‘biomarkers of psoriatic arthritis phenotypes’ at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (Bath, UK) in 2015.
Deepak has particular expertise in the investigation and management of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), spondyloarthritis (SpA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). He is qualified in the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound.
Deepak is Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit at Cambridge University Hospitals NHSFT (Addenbrooke’s Hospital), where he leads a team of 5 research nurses, 3 rheumatology fellows, and 2 administrators. They are currently performing >20 clinical trials / studies of novel cutting-edge medications for the treatment of arthritis and other rheumatological diseases.
He is an Associate Principal Investigator in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include genetic and serum biomarkers of PsA, AS and SpA, in particular those that predict prognosis.
Deepak is Theme Lead for E-learning at the University of Cambridge Clinical School, delivering high quality online learning to year 4-6 medical student.
Ronan Kavanagh - MD FRCPI
Consultant Rheumatologist, Galway
Dr Ronan Kavanagh MD FRCPI has been a Consultant Rheumatologist based in Galway since 1998 where he works in full time private practice. He did his specialist training in rheumatology in Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.
Ronan’s interests and activities in medicine are broad. He has an interest in the use of meaningful technologies in his practice and acts as an advisor for a number of medical technology companies including Vidscrip – a medical video education platform for patient education. He has also spoken about the use of social media in lifelong medical learning at BSR and ACR and is also a medical columnist and writer.
Ronan also runs dotMD – a two-day Festival of Medical Curiosity for doctors looking for more from medicine. The annual Galway based meeting aims to reawaken a passion and sense of wonder for medicine that some may have lost along the way – and help doctors find meaning in their day to day lives. dotMD and is a winner of the Irish Medical Times Medical Education Event of the year.
He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Medicine in NUI Galway, and former President of the Irish Society for Rheumatology.
He also spends far too much time on Twitter @ronantkavanagh